Once a month I go to my favorite wine shop The Fine Wine Source of Livonia, Michigan to pick up the club selections, of course by now, you realize that I tend to stop there more often than once a month.  They were quite busy there with the logistics of receiving about twenty cases of wine for an upcoming wine tasting.  I was also getting some information for a friend that had asked me a question, that I wanted to double-check on, as I try never to presume.   I was actually early for the wine club selections, but since they were prepared, they forgave me, and even poured a couple of wines for my opinion.

The club selections always begin with a wine from the Old World and we began with Domaine de Coste Chaude Cotes du Rhone Villages Visan Trilogy 2017.  The commune of Visan became a named Cotes du Rhone Villages designation in 1966 and is known predominately for its Grenache and Syrah based wines, but it also covers the rosé and white wines.  Visan is one of twenty-two favored locations that may append their name to Cotes du Rhone Villages; which would be two steps up from the generic Cotes du Rhone, but a step below “Cru” status.  The village of Visan forms part of the ancient Papal enclave formed in the 14^th Century when Pope Clement V moved his seat to Avignon (Chateauneuf-du-Pape).  Domaine de Coste Chaude was founded in the 1960’s and encompasses twenty-three hectares of gravel and clay covered with rolled pebbles at an altitude of 360 meters.  The vineyard was taken over by Marc and Marianne Fues in 1994, and they converted it to organic agriculture certified by Ecocert. In 2018, the domaine was acquired by Vincent Tramier.  The wine is one-third Roussanne, one-third Viognier and one-third Grenache Blanc. The fruit is hand harvested in the evenings, and undergoes gentle and progressive pressing.  The juice then is clarified by natural sedimentation before cold Initial Fermentation.  Twenty percent of the wine is aged in double barrels, and eighty percent remains in Stainless Steel tanks probably for about nine months.  A shiny golden wine that offers notes of white fruits, white florals, wet stones, and dash of grapefruit zest.  On the palate, tones of grapefruit, off set with some sweet lemony acidity in a well-rounded and fresh wine that has a medium-count finish of fruit and terroir.  I have to admit that I have not only tasted this wine, but have already laid some down in our cellar collection.

For the New World there was a bottle of Donati Family Vineyard Merlot Paso Robles 2021.  The Donati family started arriving in the Paicines region of the Central Coast in 1998, when they purchased the land that would become the family estate and vineyard.  Since then, they have planted the vineyards and built a state-of-the-art winery.  Paicines is the southernmost AVA in the San Benito County and in the 1980’s and 1990’s the area was associated with the production of bulk wines, but a few wineries are attempting to correct that image.  To this day, much of the fruit is grown and then sent to wineries in other parts of California.  It is still home to the five-hundred-acre Vista Verde Vineyard that was previously owned by Almaden Vineyards, before the company was sold and split up in the 1980’s.  The sandy soils of gravel and limestone have forced the vines to develop deep root systems, because of the good drainage and has strengthened the vines.  This wine is ninety-nine percent Merlot and one percent Cabernet Sauvignon.  The wine began with Initial Fermentation in Stainless Steel with twice daily punch-downs.  Then is aged for eighteen months in a mixture of wood, of which seven percent is new French Oak, twenty-two percent is new American Oak and seven percent is new Eastern European Oak.  There were eight-hundred-forty-eight cases produced.  The wine is described as having notes of cherry, blueberries, plums, and spices.  On the palate there are tones of the above fruits along with white chocolate, hazelnut, Crème de Cocoa with a good medium finish featuring fruit and toasted oak.